. >> did anything that speaker boehner said make you optimistic? was it just that urgency that you're talking about? >> well, it's the urgency, but i think the spirit at the table was one of everybody wants to make the best effort to get this done. hopefully that is possible. hopefully it is possible by the middle of december so the confidence of the markets and, most importantly, the confidence of the consumers returns to infuse our economy with demand, which creates jobs. >> you said afterwards there would be these milestones of success. how will that work? what are the goals? are there interim goals? >> well, my suggestion was that we at some point, not necessarily today, decide on what our goal is in terms of the amount of deficit reduction that we can achieve, some date by which we'd like to do it, the middle of december so this doesn't take us up to christmas, some milestones along the way so progress can be demonstrated we're moving in a forward direction. >> i spoke to senator michael bennet of colorado earlier this week. he said this reall